Cavity-mediated localization and collective electron correlation phases
Abstract
Collective strong coupling of molecular ensembles to optical cavities opens a route to modifying matter through genuinely collective electronic correlations. Yet even in the absence of a cavity, Coulomb correlations are notoriously difficult to describe, and cavity coupling adds transverse correlation channels extending over the entire molecular ensemble. Here we show that this seemingly intractable problem admits a controlled description by mapping the collective intermolecular electronic correlations to the analytically solvable spherical Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. The resulting theory predicts two collective correlation phases, a paracorrelated phase and a spin-glass correlation phase, beyond the conventional uncorrelated molecular regime. These phases reveal an entropy-driven localization-delocalization mechanism that transfers molecular electronic states into collectively correlated cavity-dressed states. Our work establishes cavity-mediated electron correlations as a microscopic mechanism for emergent phases in strongly coupled molecular ensembles.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.01551,
title = {Cavity-mediated localization and collective electron correlation phases},
author = {Dominik Sidler and Michael Ruggenthaler and Angel Rubio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.01551},
year = {2026}
}